


if it's small enough to carry, you and i can call it home

by swimthewholeriogrande



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Canon Era, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, Fluff, Growing Up, Love, M/M, Waltzing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2018-10-17
Packaged: 2019-08-03 16:34:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16329629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swimthewholeriogrande/pseuds/swimthewholeriogrande
Summary: Some loves never leave us.





	if it's small enough to carry, you and i can call it home

**Author's Note:**

> title from god of loss by darlingside (which i recommend listening to while you read)

Jack never used to have anything that was really his.

For most of his life, the clothes on his back had been communal and the bed he slept on rented; anything he bought or was given he'd shared, whether it was food or pity or money - God, money, the cruelest master of his days - and he'd owned not a damn thing that was his own. The strike was something that had belonged to the whole city; his ma had long since died and become no-one's ma, no-one's anything. 

And that was alright. Growing pains had started to gnaw at Jack long before the summer of 1899, the bone-deep ache of a fattening animal in a shrinking box. Possessions, surely, would've only made the space smaller; Jack had been too busy knocking knees and elbows and skull off the edges of his limited existence to worry about something as trivial as ownership.

He only become aware of his lack of it as he grew out of boxes and people and the lodging, working on the docks till salt and oil settled in his palms; when the growing pains eased and become aching, resenting memories of his childhood - of standing on boxes and speaking to the world and defying God and Pulitzer to tell him he didn't matter, of owning nothing. Jack worked till his fingernails tore down to the quick for money or freedom, whichever came first, dreamed of Santa Fe and rooftops and things he never had. He saw his boys grow and shift around the city.

When he had the money - after four years of shitty New York tenements and the smell of blood, of Spot Conlon's voice in his ear hissing of crime and pleasure - Jack washed his face and cleaned under his nails and went to the Jacobs' house. He'd been writing to Davey since the other boy - man - had left for college; making plans and promises; Davey's suitcase was in the hallway, still packed, when Jack called round and silently prayed for an affirmation of the future they'd own together.

In his hands, calloused and work-heavy, he held a bunch of roses and a key.

He looked older, Jack thought, though he supposed he himself must too. Davey now wore glasses, eyes surely strained with academia, but they fell off when he kissed Jack squarely on the mouth and whispered to him, "You came. Jackie, you came." And Jack was almost bemused, because where else would he be?

The apartment he'd scraped and saved for wasn't much. Two beds - as was necessary for the image of two single bachelors sharing lodgings - a kitchenette and a faded red loveseat. It was bare and cold and Jack had nothing to add it to it; nothing his own before now, before Davey.

The place upstairs walked around with lead boots, downstairs played music non-stop on a tinny gramophone, but it didn't much matter to either of them. When Jack got home from the docks sweating and aching, and Davey dragged himself back from the library with his eyes smarting, they'd light the candles in the damp space and yell at the upstairs giant - till everything was quiet and they could hear, crackling, the faded notes from below. They'd kick off shoes with thick woollen socks and spin with hands on waists, slowly, in the half-dark.

And Jack had belongings now, a whole place of his own, and a lover. Any old pains settled at the hollow of his neck, easily brushed or kissed away; and he danced in semi-light with Davey, step-two-three, a waltz that never seemed to end.

**Author's Note:**

> I really loved writing this actually! I love writing with music playing I feel that it can really influence the way a story will go. If you enjoyed this please leave a comment, thanks for reading!


End file.
